[A sannyasin had written a letter about relationship with his girlfriend, who was living in London, and who wished to be married to him. He was uncertain as to what was the best thing to do as he had reservations about marriage but was in love with her.]

Osho – One thing – don’t get married. That will be very destructive. You will never be able to forgive her – that will be the destructive element in it – and you will start taking revenge. There is no need to get married, but you should start feeling a sort of commitment, that’s another thing. There is no need to get married, but because there is no need to get married there is a great need to feel committed, and more than when one gets married.

In marriage, in fact, you can avoid commitment. Marriage is an avoidance. Legally, formally, you are committed, that’s right, but the responsibility is avoided. When you are not married to a woman, commitment is greater because there is no legal bind in it. Responsibility is deeper because she simply trusts you.

So marriage and commitment are not both the same thing. Marriage is an avoidance of commitment, of real commitment. It is a bogus commitment, a pseudo-commitment, just to show that one is committed. If you avoid marriage then you are able to take the whole responsibility personally. Then the society is not in it; the law and the court and nobody else are in it. It is absolutely personal, and the commitment is very great.

I suggest that you don’t get married – not because I would not like you to be committed, but because I would like you to be committed really deeply. Her attitude is understandable. A woman always wants to belong. That has nothing to do with any particular individuals; it is something to do with the very nature of womanhood. It is part of the feminine mind to lean to somebody, to possess and to be possessed. So it is not a question of somebody being like that. All women, more or less, are like that. That is their intrinsic quality.

And when a woman loses that quality, she loses something of her womanhood. Then she is not worth much. She is almost like a man; she has a male mind. You will not feel that softness, that fragileness that gives grace and beauty to a woman. It is just like a creeper. The creeper needs some tree to belong to, to creep upon, to be supported by. The creeper cannot stand on its own. But that is one of the most beautiful experiences – that somebody belongs to you and you belong to somebody. Belonging is one of the most desired states of the human mind. You feel rooted when you feel that you belong to somebody.

Now many things have disappeared in the world which used to give a feeling of belongingness – the nation, the church, the society. Those are in fact gone; only shadows are existing. Nobody is english now in the sense of being english two hundred years ago. Nobody is indian in the sense that people used to be indian. That looks sort of foolish. Man is man. Nobody is white and black.

Even if it persists it persists just as a habit, but it has lost its grip. So all other belongings have disappeared. Now the only belonging is personal, a personal love. Otherwise one feels very lonely – and woman more so, because her whole love is receptive, passive. She waits… but she is not aggressive. If there is nobody to belong to, then waiting simply becomes waiting for Godot. It is a waiting and waiting and waiting, and it is heavy.

So her attitude can be understood. She is perfectly right, but she is in a deep misunderstanding – as almost all are. She thinks marriage will be a commitment. That’s where she is wrong. So you have to write to her from me about everything that I am saying to you. But give her your commitment. Make her feel that she belongs to you and you belong to her.

Two months of the year is not enough to spend with her [as the sannyasin had suggested in his letter]. Make it at least six months. Two months is not enough. By the time you start going deep, intimate, you are gone and she simply hangs there. That can become very miserable. Then you come again but the gap is big and before you become acquainted again, the time to go has come.

So you come and go but you never establish roots with her and she cannot have time to be really intimate with you. More time is needed. So if you are not going to England more often then make your home in Poona, but be here for at least six months. Or be in England, but make it at least six months you are with her and then for six months you can be a wanderer.

You can come and be with her for two months and then go for one, but be with her for at least six months in the year. By and by, you will also need a home. By and by, you will feel the need arising more and more. As one becomes older one needs it. When one is young it is very simple to be a wanderer; it fits. But as you become a little older you would like some place to rest, to be yourself, and not to be bothered by so many things which one has to go through if one is travelling and going here and there. You will need a home.

My suggestion is that you make it Poona, so that for six months you are with me too, and then for six months you can go anywhere you want and do your thing. She will also feel happy here and she will not miss you because I will be here. But make some arrangements. She loves you, and if she is forced to marry somebody else she will never be happy.

You also will not be happy about that. That too will create a problem deep inside and again you will not be able to forgive yourself. You will feel a little guilty that she was ready to be with you and you could not allow it. If you get married you will not be able to forgive her. If you don’t marry and you are not committed and she has to marry somebody else, you will not be able to forgive yourself; you will feel a certain guilt. Guilt can become a very great problem. There is no way then to go back. Once she is married to somebody, there is no way to go back and then things become very complicated.

So my understanding is that there is no need to get married – legally, that is. No need to make any formal commitment, but make a deep commitment so that she doesn’t feel a lack of commitment and she is not just hanging in the air. Women become more afraid as they get older that their charm, their beauty, will be lost – and who will love them in their old age? Who will be there to love them when they are not so lovable? That fear creeps inside the mind of a woman.

If you don’t get into a commitment with her she will be forced to marry somebody else, but she will not be able to love them. You will haunt her and she will haunt you, and both your lives will be destroyed in a subtle way. I understand that there is no romance now in it, no fantasy in it, but that’s how it should be.

My understanding about two people getting into deep waters is that it is only possible when the honeymoon is over, not before it. If my suggestion someday becomes prevalent, then people should go on their honeymoon before they get married. The honeymoon should precede marriage, and when a love relationship has survived the honeymoon then people should get married, otherwise not. My understanding is that ninety-nine marriages are finished by the time the honeymoon is over.

So it is just foolish to be committed, and to be in a hypocritical relationship is a pseudo-pretension. It is good that your honeymoon is over. Now there is no emotional urge to be committed. There is no fantasy around it. Things are simple and natural. Now you are no more in a fever, a passion, and neither is she. You are both alert. To be committed in a feverish state of mind is almost as if you are drunk and you get committed to something. By the morning when you come back to your senses you don’t even remember, and you cannot believe that you have given your word.

When two people are deep in fantasy, in a romantic mood – as it always happens in the beginning – it is not time to get committed. It is the worst time to get committed, and people get committed then! They talk about things which are just foolish, and they say, ’We will be together forever and forever.’ When the fever is gone and their normal temperature has returned, then they will not be able to believe what they have done. But then it is too late.

So it is good that in this moment your relationship is no more moving in the peaks or the valleys. It is just on the plain ground. This is the right time to take any decision. So think over it – no marriage, but great commitment. And at least six months are hers. More, if you can manage – good – but not less. And write to her.

When we begin a new relationship or date someone after we’ve left a previous one it can sometimes be difficult to keep our mouths closed about events that happened in the past. Sometimes it’s because we haven’t taken the proper amount of time needed to get over our ex which leads us to obsessively talk about them and find a way to place them in every conversation and every scenario. Another reason we find ourselves reliving our past in our present is because we are creatures of routine and comfort. We want to be able to qualify our current situation with one of the past to help us feel relaxed. I understand that we all have a past and it shouldn’t be hidden from the individual you are currently dating but please spare some details. There is an area of grey between being honest and divulging too much information. To…

When we fall in love as an adult, the style of attachment formed as an infant influences how we treat our romantic partners.

People who formed a secure attachment to their caregivers tend to form a secure attachment to the person they love.

Individuals with a secure style of attachment have more satisfying and longer lasting relationships. Secure individuals are comfortable being close to their partners. They are comfortable having someone depend on them just as they are comfortable being dependent on another individual. Being more trusting, open, and understanding, they approach problems and issues that may arise with their partners in a constructive manner.

People who formed an anxious or preoccupied attachment as an infant, by comparison, are more likely to be preoccupied with their relationships as an adult. Anxious or preoccupied adults are constantly worried and anxious about their love life – they crave and desperately need intimacy – but, they never stop questioning their partner’s love (“do you really love me?”). Anxious individuals are concerned that their partners will leave them. These adults are obsessed with their relationships and everything that happens in them. They rarely feel completely loved and they experience extreme emotional highs and lows. One minute their romantic partner can make their day by showing them the smallest level of interest and the next minute they are worried that their partner doesn’t care about them. Overall, anxiously attached individuals are hard to satisfy; you can’t love them enough, or be close enough to them, and they constantly monitor their relationships for problems. Ironically, their need for love, makes it easy for anxious individuals to be taken advantage of when it comes to love and romance, which in the long run can create even more suspicion and doubt.

Finally, people who had a dismissing style of attachment as an infant are likely to form a dismissing attachment to their romantic partners. As adults, dismissing individuals are uncomfortable with intimacy – they actually fear it. They do not like it when people get close, and they don’t like being dependent on a partner or having someone be dependent on them. Dismissing individuals tend not to trust others, and they are more self-sufficient, cynical, and independent in nature. They are less likely to fall deeply in love and need a lot less affection and intimacy. Dismissing individuals are more apt to put their time into their careers, hobbies, and activities than their relationships. They also get easily annoyed with their relational partners and often display negative feelings and hostility toward their loved ones.

OK, this is a bit off-topic for this blog, but hey.. maybe it relates to the part about being 60?

For once, I am putting the “fix” at the top of this blog, please watch the video first.
The video was taken by Eric with me and Mary working on the video by way of Skype in Pennsylvania and California:
(Addition in Oct.2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiOdgpCnuHI )

Now, carefully read the instructions written out, and know that the sublety of this so-called stretch may evade you until you begin to find the FIRST place in the calf of each leg that feels just a little tight when you pull up into it, and learn to feel the release of that tension:

1. Walk around a little, get into the way your feet, heels and all feel on the floor, how they are meeting the floor, are the heels pulling up?

2. Find a doorframe with an inch and a half high sill, or put a couple of books in the doorframe.

3. Stand in the doorframe, putting the big toe joints of both big toes (and the rest of your forefoot as it falls evenly) on the sill or a couple of books. Your feet will be at a slight angle because your heels will be lower than your toes. Now, look straight out, not down at your toes.

4. There is tension in your calves. Grabbing the door frame as best as you can on both sides, take your plank body back until there is not a feeling of tension in either calf. (The calf of the leg is the part between the knee and the ankle. Do not try to do the two of the calves of the legs separately unless you are feeling wildly experimental; it won’t work.)

5. Slightly pull up your body with your hands and arms, until you feel a very slight bit of tension in your calves.

5a. Wait until the tension goes away, and repeat the pullup, (without moving yourself up and down or otherwise jangling) slightly pull up with your hands and arms until you feel a very slight bit of tension in your calves. Wait for the release of tension.

Do once more. 3 times pulling up is enough for one time. If you want to repeat again that day, wait a few hours. I did the sets of 3 about 3 times a day when I first was looking for the result which Stark describes.

Walk around a bit, observe your feet and especially your heels, how they contact the ground. Can the heels stay on the ground better, longer, as you walk?

My son gave me the book and 6 months later, feeling a little guilty because he had asked me what I thought of the innovative ideas in it, I threw it in my suitcase on the way to work at a Japanese music festival.

Two weeks into the festival, still waking up at 3:30 with no English books left and faced with watching the Seattle Mariners as the only thing on TV in English, I began to read Stark’s tidy opus.

I don’t much like his extensive quoting of studies of stretching dead tissue; I don’t think it speaks to the problem at all and of course I had no way of actually looking at the studies.

However, his point that the way we all know of stretching is not the whole story at all is one we all need to know.

This exercise above shows what Stark calls the “sarcomere slide” for the calves and he claimed it would help bunions. I had a bunion brought on by a broken big left toe, and was interested to see if the “sarcomere slide” would help.

There were other reasons why I was interested, too. From one of my early trainings on I and other Rolfers have been frustrated by bunions, they are remarkably long-lived and persistent.

This exercise helps because the bunion is living in the long attachments of muscles and tendons in the calves of the legs.

So, root it out! It took about 2 months of daily doing of this before mine was totally gone. Now I just do the exercise occasionally when I show it to someone, and the bunion is still gone, 5 years later. I believe that the “sarcomeres” can learn and retain.

By the Way, you can use this procedure of “sarcomere slide” anywhere you’d like to have a stretch. Dr. Stark is a podiatrist and his book (which I highly recommend, especially to those in the biz) is oriented to the lower part of the body.

Many thanks to Mary and Eric for figuring the above video out and how to do it with the skype session with me. Mary says to tell you that she created her bunions doing ballroom dancing in high heels, and that the pain in her bunion was gone after 2 days of doing this exercise. It never was a very big bunion, and it mostly is gone now.

Food is tied to ALL bodily functions and yes our reproductive health too. There are certain foods that can directly act as aphrodisiacs, lubricants, performance enhancers and more. I was shocked to hear that most people nowadays rely on toxic chemical drugs to ‘boost’ libido and to solve erectile dysfunction but none has ever mentioned the use of your day-to-day spices to spice up your love life.

First things first, it all comes down to diet and lifestyle choices. Most men nowadays eat highly processed genetically modified foods that lack nutrients and on top of that, they do not exercise but drink alcohol and smoke tobacco all week, the same applies to many women and hence the dependence on ‘performance enhancers’. If you want to enhance your performance the ONLY way to do that is eating healthy and exercising almost everyday. You know yourself, you enzoy-buyer, that ishh will kill…